Book review: MICHAEL MANSFIELD, Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2010, 512 pp., ISBN 9781408801291, £10.99 (pbk)
| Author | Dan Newman |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/09646639110200030705 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
theoretically rigorous and extremely readable. Too often, legal theory monographs
require a certain (usually quite high) base-levelof background knowledge to be intelligi-
ble. This is regrettable, and inevitably impacts upon their readership and the reception of
the authors’ ideas in the wider legal community. Answering for Crime does not suffer
from this defect, and those unfamiliar with Duff’s earlier work, or criminal law theory
generally, should not be deterred from picking up a copy. Hart must be commended for
releasing a paperback version of the book to make this a more affordable enterprise,
particularly for students.
Reference
Husak D (2007) Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Findlay Stark
University of Edinburgh, UK
MICHAEL MANSFIELD, Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer. London: Bloomsbury Publishing
PLC, 2010, 512 pp., ISBN 9781408801291, £10.99 (pbk).
In an adversarial system of criminal justice, committed defence lawyers are a necessity
to ensure that those suspected and accused of crimes can stand up to the state. Without
this key element, miscarriages of justice become more likely and their results upon an
individual can be massive. Wrongful conviction causes all manner of harms; indeed,
Naughton (2001: 56–61) has highlighted the social, psychological, physical and financial
wrongs which can result from mistakes in the criminal process.
Some of these evils can be appreciatedwith a cursory glance at one of the most famous
miscarriage of justice cases, the BirminghamSix who were wrongly convicted of an IRA
bombing in the 1970s. Among their number was PaddyHill who spent 16 years in prison
and, long after his successful appeal, was still not fully recovered. As Hill recounted to a
journalist for the Guardian in 2002:
Prison kills you a little bit each day, and sooner or later you wake up and you don’t feel
nothing. Me, I died in prison ... I keep telling people you can’t put it behind you. And
to hear all this old bollocks, ‘Time is a wonderful healer’, time doesn’t heal fuck all.
The only thing that time does, if you’re strong enough, is helps you to cope with it a little
bit better. (Hattenstone, 2002)
Hill says that he wasleft a broken man, and although he has sufferedsince leaving prison, it
does not bearimagining how much more Paddy Hill mighthave suffered were he still there.
The legal practitioner at the centre of ensuringthat Hill, and numerous othermiscarriage of
justice victims, were at least offered the opportunity to rebuild their lives free of unlawful
incarcerationis Michael MansfieldQC. Mansfield roseto prominence for representingsuch
clients, suspected of Republican terrorism during the height of the Irish ‘Troubles’, even
412 Social & Legal Studies 20(3)
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